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VALERIAN.

Valerian root possesses a strong and rather unpleasant smell. It has a soothing effect upon the nerves and is often found to be useful in cases of sleeplessness.

Valerian Tea.

Place 1 tablespoonful of the crushed root in ½ pint of boiling water. Allow to stand for a few minutes and then drink. The best time to take it is just before going to bed.

VEGETABLES.

Green and root vegetables, on account of their valuable organic mineral salts, are desirable acquisitions for making soups and beverages, as has been indicated throughout this book. Such liquids possess strong waste-eliminating properties, so that they are particularly good for people suffering from catarrhal, gouty and rheumatic diseases.

The fresh juices extracted by means of the Enterprise Fruit Juice Press are the most valuable as eliminating agents, because their organic minerals are in no way impaired or devitalized by heat. These vegetable juices can be made into “unfired soups” which may be served iced in small cups as appetizers and waste eliminators.

The following cooked soups are examples of thousands of others:

Vegetable Soup.

Invaluable for use in a “vegetable fast.” Add to 1 pint of water in a saucepan, 2 large carrots, 2 turnips, 1 spanish onion, 1 small bunch of parsley, any apple peel, or stalks or outside leaves of cabbage, etc., 1 tablespoonful of pot barley or unpolished rice.

Method: simmer together for several hours until soft, rub through a wire sieve, and serve very hot.

If the soup is wanted quickly, first grate the root vegetables on a flat fine grater.

No salt, pepper, or soda should be added to this soup, but dried herbs can be used if necessary for flavouring if such is desired.

Devonshire Soup.

2 onions, 2 carrots sliced, pint split peas, 2 ozs. rice (unpolished). Put all into earthen pot with one gallon water, close, stew till thoroughly softened. Serve hot.

Strength Broth.

Take some roots and green vegetables in season, add small onion and some cabbage seeds. Cut or chop into small pieces, and simmer in butter for about 15 minutes. Then add enough hot water and allow all to become pulpy, put through fine sieve. Result: a fine strength-giving broth.

A Stock.

Mix 1 oz. wholemeal flour with 1 oz. butter until smooth, heat in a saucepan until golden colour, then, still churning and stirring, add to the soup to be thickened.

Vegetable Decoctions.

Water 14 pints, carrots 13 ozs., potatoes 10 ozs., turnips 3½ ozs., peas or haricot beans 3 ozs. Boil together for 4 hours. (Hery.)

Vegetable Decoction.

Water 1 quart, fresh sorrel leaves 1½ oz., lettuce leaves ½ oz., chervil ¼ oz. Boil for an hour, then add 80 grains of butter.

Carrot Soup.

Scrape and wash half a dozen large carrots, put into a large stew-pan with enough water to cover them, include one head of celery and an onion cut into thin pieces. Cover stew-pan close, set on slow stove for 2½ hours, boil for 2 or 3 minutes, rub through sieve or tamis cloth with wooden spoon. Serve hot in a breakfast cup.

Rhubarb Soup.

Wash and drain 4 large sticks of rhubarb and put in a stew-pan with sufficient water, add 2 onions sliced, a carrot, a piece of butter, and minced or grated lemon peel. Stew until tender and serve.

Tomato Soup.

Obtain from 12 to 15 ripe tomatoes, take off stalks and cut into pieces, put in stew-pan with water, a capsicum, a clove and other spice. Cook slowly until dissolved, then rub through sieve or vegetable masher into stew-pan. Warm up again and serve.

VINEGAR

is made by fully fermenting any vegetable substances which contain starch, sugar or cellulose. The fermentation process is carried beyond the alcohol stage and the vinegar plant is usually used to ensure uniformity of the fermentative process.

Father Kneipp, the great continental Nature Cure exponent, used vinegar to increase the effect of cold water applications upon the skin, since it dissolves the surface layers of the skin in a corrosive way. In this way a deeper penetration of the water was found to be possible. In a strong form vinegar removes corns and warts, but it needs to be carefully applied lest injury to the skin should occur, which may induce eczema or other skin trouble.

Taken internally, vinegar injures the walls of the stomach and hinders the formation of the blood. It is for this reason that silly people sometimes drink it freely to become pale and thin. Its use in salad dressing is unwise. It should be replaced by fresh lemon juice.

A good lotion for the hair used by Father Kneipp was made by dissolving the heads of fresh stinging nettles in vinegar.

The late Dr. Kirk of Edinburgh, who was one of the pioneers of Nature Cure methods in Scotland, also used and recommended a particular brand of acetic acid (a refinement of vinegar) for external application. One of his favourite methods was to first bathe the part in hot water, then spread over it a thick lather of vegetable ash soap, repeating this several times, then rub pure acetic acid into the skin, and finally do the like with pure olive oil. (See Papers on Health, new edition, 1911, 2s. 6d. net).

Most food reformers are agreed that vinegar in the guise of food, should be entirely avoided, as a form of poison which is even more detrimental to the human tissues than alcohol itself. They use lemon or lime juice in its place.

The Romans used vinegar as a beverage, diluted with water, when on their marches; but probably this was in reality a very acid kind of cheap wine.

It has been asserted that “vinegar, or acetic acid, plays a double part in the body of first an acid of a neutral salt, and then in the form of carbonic acid as the acid of an alkaline salt. This valuable dietetic quality [which, by the way, is common to all fruit acids] is partly counter-balanced in English vinegar by the circumstance that sulphuric acid (1/1000 by weight) is allowed to be added to vinegar, the sulphuric acid being hurtful from the tendency to form insoluble salts of lime. This mineral acid is not necessary and its addition is not permitted on the continent.”